I Want It All. November 30, 2005 ~ 2:06 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedAccording to my WeatherBug, it’s a balmy 62 degrees out. Not a bad way to end November, but you know what would be really cool? A 62 degree December 1. Unfortunately, I’m not going to get that. Tomorrow the temperatures drop to the 40s. Am I the only one who remembers how fucking cold it was here last year, and fears the return of that kind of weather? Obviously I am. I need to move somewhere where the average temperature year-round is 70 degrees. I would be happy then.
Ah, who the hell am I kidding? I would find something else to bitch about, something else I could convince myself I need. That is the nature of Americans, if not all of mankind, at the beginning of the 21st Century. Just when you look around and think “Yep, I’ve got it good. I’ve got everything I could possibly want.” someone comes up with something else you’ve just got to have. Who the hell are these inventors and why won’t they stop? Why did you have to make an iPod that plays videos? A PSP and a Nintendo DS? Computers that make mine obsolete every time I turn around? Actually, I’ve got them beat on that one, at least for the next week. Mom, proving once again that she is a wonderful human being and the best parent ever (no, you can’t have her), knowing that the Gateway she got me back in 2001 has crashed several times and has never really recovered from me trying to install DSL, has bought me a new computer for Christmas. If UPS doesn’t fuck me over, as they have in the past, I should have it tonight. Blogoverse, keep your fingers crossed. If all goes well, I could finally be playing Sims 2 soon.
Fuck, I forgot the point of this post. Was there one? Oh, yeah, we will always want something that we don’t have. If I had every high tech toy in the universe, I would want something else, and you know you’re the same way. Now excuse me while I go drool over some yarn.
**UPDATE**
The computer has been delivered, and according to UPS’s tracking system, my landlady signed for it. Alas, Rick got us tickets to a Broadway show, so there will be no Sims playing for me tonight. See, no matter how good you’ve got it, you always want something more.
Knitting ponderings November 29, 2005 ~ 3:09 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
Sixteen shades of grey - Lake George, NY
I have somehow managed to hurt my left wrist. The ache in the top part of it seems to have started with the bug bites that made my hand swell up like a balloon, but then again, maybe that was just the first time I really noticed it. I can never really tell you how long I’ve been feeling funky unless I have an event to connect it to - it might have been going on for some time prior to that, but I don’t actually remember. Then again, the wrist pain might have nothing to do with the bug bites. It could be knitting-related. Or typing-related. Or even sex-related. I just don’t know. However I am now wearing a brace, since that seems to help. I suppose not typing or knitting would help too, but Goddess knows I have too damn much knitting to get done between now and Christmas to stop, so a brace it will be.
Speaking of the knitting…I was thinking about all the people I know who knit the other night, and realized something truly awesome about them. Every one of those people? Their personalities are reflected in their knitting. My friend Jordana, who is the funkiest white girl I know (I mean that in a good way…she embodies what I think of when I think “female urban fashion.” While I stick to Gap and Old Navy, Jordana prefers ethnic fabrics and designs mixed with sleek leather and denim, and she carries it off.), her knitting reflects that. She made a scarf completely out of a nice bulky grey yarn, then threw in three stripes in orange at the one end. If I had knit the scarf, it would have had stripes on both sides, but not Jordana. She wears that scarf, and damned if it isn’t perfect for her.
My friend Dawn, who I taught to knit this summer, emailed me the other day. Something you have to understand about Dawn: she is the craftiest person in existence. I will look at something and think, “How cute, I need to buy this.” Dawn looks at the same object and thinks “I could make this for less.” And she’s right. You know the pink bunny pajamas Ralphie’s aunt makes him in the movie A Christmas Story? Damn made those for her boyfriend in college. She had no pattern, she just made it. She can make anything. So it came as no surprise when we were emailing about knitting, she told me she’d already done a project with cables and knitted some socks. I haven’t done cables or socks yet, and here’s Dawn, who has only been knitting since June, and she’s already done them. It was very Dawn.
Finally, the Oldest, my knitting protege, knocked my socks off the other week. She showed me a scarf she was knitting for her aunt, and she is combining two yarns to do so - a fuzzy mohair one with cotton thread running through it, and a nice blue merino. She came up with this idea by herself. No one told her that you could combine yarns, she just decided to do it. That is totally the Oldest, and it was my proudest moment as a knitter to know that I had started her down that road. I’m pathetic, really. But dammit, you should see her scarf. A work of art.
No, the M&M balloon didn’t drop a streetlight on me. Thanks for asking. November 27, 2005 ~ 11:05 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedHow much would it suck to say “Yeah, the person that got hit by the lightpole the M&M balloon knocked over? That was me. I spent my Thanksgiving with the doctors and nurses at St. Vinnie’s.”
I was not that person, so it doesn’t suck to be me. In fact, many nice things happened to me this weekend, including finding $20 on the sidewalk last night. That goes a long way toward making up for that shit time in my life three years ago when $80 fell out of my pocket when I couldn’t really afford it. Thank you, Universe, for giving me back some money.
Now that I have acknowledged that, I can move on to funny things that happened to me on the subway this weekend. When the tourists are in town, you can be sure there is plenty of fodder for comedy, even beyond helium-filled candies laying the smack down.
1.) Wednesday night I went in to Rick’s place via subway. Rick’s place is very near the area where they inflate the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. This inflation used to be one of the best kept secrets in town, but has now degenerated into a free-for-all of tourists. By the time I got to the subway stop near Rick’s house, there were about 100 of them trying to figure out how to work the Metrocard turnstiles. There were three New Yorkers (including myself) who wanted out, and after the bitch of a train ride I had in, which took 45 minutes longer than usual, I wanted out now. No tourists were moving out of my way, and so the woman beside me took charge: “Some of us want out!” she bellowed, and when that didn’t work, she said “Alright, fine. The next one of you that’s coming through the turnstile, stop. Stay there until we come through. We live here.” They did. New Yorkers, 1, Turistas, 0.
2.) Last night, when I was on the train feeling the effects of either bad Chinese or too much sexual exertion, I noticed a homeless guy getting off the train at 59th Street. As the train slowed to a stop, he started barking like a dog. He continued barking the entire way out of the train and up the staircase. Some people were obviously terrified like this. Some of us laughed really hard. Guess which ones were the tourists? New Yorkers, 2, Turistas, 0.
3.) This afternoon, a woman was discussing her favorite films with another subway rider who was obviously only listening because she was trapped. The opinionated woman started talking about Jack Nicholson films, asking if her victim had seen “Mr. Smith, you know the one where he’s forced to retire and live in a motorhome.” The victim hadn’t seen it and said so. The opinionated woman said “Oh, “Mr. Smith” is a must-see-film! It’s great!” So great that she couldn’t remember the name of the film was actually “About Schmidt.” Dear Ndugu…some people are idiots. No score awarded because I’m pretty sure the opinionated woman was a New Yorker, and I don’t want to reward her stupidity. Still, it was pretty damned funny.
4.) Tonight, a beautiful night in Brooklyn, I was climbing out of the subway and something came hurtling down the stairway at me. Something about the size of my foot, furry, and black. The woman beside me, wearing an “I Heart New York” shirt (Hi, can we say tourist?) jumped. I did not. I can tell the difference between a rat and a hair-extension tumbleweed. New Yorkers, 3, Turistas, -1.
I am reminded at this crazy time of year, when everyone drops what they’re doing in their hometowns to come to my town, stand in the middle of pedestrian traffic, ask stupid questions, and generally slow me down in any way possible, of something my cousin told me when she visited me a few years ago. “New York is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.” I looked her in the eye and said “Maybe New York would be a nicer place to live if so many damn tourists didn’t visit here.”
Hi, my name is Julie, and I am a grouchy New Yorker.
Holiday Cheer November 23, 2005 ~ 10:05 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
Wagon Wheel Fence, Lake George, NY
First things first, if you haven’t gone over to E-Lo’s to wish little Lyric Alexandra (the baby formerly known as Fuzz) a happy birthday, do so now. Comply.
Second, in the grand spirit of holiday togetherness, I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with Rick’s family in Massachusetts tomorrow. Thanksgiving is not one of those big holidays as far as I’m concerned. Once I moved to New York, I didn’t make an effort to get home for it, since I was going to have to buy a plane ticket for Christmas a month later anyway. I spent three of my first four years here doing what we like to call “Urban Family Thanksgiving,” which means I spent it with my friends. I’ll miss that this year; I have fond memories of Rick and Jordana’s husband Thabiso drunkenly discussing how turkeys are “just like little dinosaurs!” last year.
This year the girls are making pies, so all I have to do is bring the wine. I asked Rick what kind his family likes. “They’re not big wine drinkers,” he told me. “The wine I brought last year was gone by the end of the day,” I said, hoping I hadn’t made a huge faux pas last year. “Oh, they’ll drink it,” he replied. “They just don’t care what it is. You and I are the only ones who drink wine on a regular basis, though. Just bring what you brought last year.” That’s helpful.
I’ll close with a paraphrase of the best Thanksgiving poison pen letter never sent, from one of my cousins to another who lived in California. It has become legendary in my family, for good reason. “I’m sitting here, thinking of things to be thankful for; I am thankful that you are 3,000 miles away from me.” (Apologies to the author, because I know I fucked it up…it was brilliant, especially since she was about 10 when she wrote it.) See, it’s not just me, my whole family is like this. Happy Fuckin’ Thankgsiving!
Hello, I’m a revisionist. November 22, 2005 ~ 10:55 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
At least according to Darth Cheney and President Asshat I am. Frankly, I’m a little insulted by this. If I were going to revise history, I’d be rewriting other things. Perhaps since it’s November 22, I’d revise the findings of the Warren Commission on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Or maybe I’d start small and revise the ending of Sunday’s Steelers/Ravens debacle. And my revisions would be a hell of a lot more believable than “Ooooh, Sadam Hussein is connected to 9/11.” For Chrissakes, when that happened, how many of us believed it? Probably as many as believe it now. If you’re going to have spin, at least make sure it’s good spin. But if the best writer the White House can offer us is Scooter Libby, I guess the Sadam angle was really the best they could come up with. Maybe Sadam gets fucked by a bear, too. A bear with a WMD.
Contract negotiations for my union roll on (involving neither bears nor WMDs), and although we’re told it’s getting better, we’re also told there are no guarantees. So I’ve decided “Fuck it.” That’s right, fuck it. Christmas is not a time to be depressed about what you can’t afford, it’s a time to reach out and give what you can. What I can do is send out Christmas cards to the blogoverse, like I did last year. So here’s your invite. If you want a Christmas card (bear in mind…ha! I said “bear”!…that they will probably be discount cards from Rite Aid), I will send you one. All you have to do, dear blog friend, is email me your address at the address in the side bar. If you would like to send me a Christmas card, I would love that. Email me and ask for my address and I will give it to you. From what I know if you all, you are not serial killers, and if by some chance you are, my landlady has a big dog who will eat you if you try to kill us. So there.
And now, a funny landlady story, because we haven’t had enough funny stories here of late. A couple of weeks ago, my landlady came up with the radiator repair guy to fix the radiator in my room. I was on the phone with Rick when they came up, and was not paying much attention to them because of that. My landlady takes care of the cats for me sometimes when I go away, and was playing with Jesse while Joe hid. I hear her ask where Joe is and flush him out of his hiding spot under the couch. He runs in to see her, and suddenly I hear her say to him, “Hey, Joe! How are you? Remember that time when you bit me?” Yep, that’s what I want to hear. My cat has mauled my landlady in the past. Greaaat. They both seem to have gotten past that, though, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Stoopid cat.
Perhaps you had to be there for that to be funny. In that case…Republican bear porn! Always good for a laugh, right?
Scrooged November 21, 2005 ~ 11:27 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
Lake George, NY
Christmas spirit struck this morning as I was at the eye doctor’s. To be fair, my pupils were dilated, I couldn’t focus on things, there was not a lot I could really do. So while trapped in the exam room waiting for the rest of my eye exam, I started making lists. Lists of Christmas presents already taken care of, Christmas presents still to be bought, Christmas wrapping paper needed, trips to the Post Office necessary to mail crap, and people who would probably not appreciate an entirely homemade Christmas (ie, my brother and sister-in-law, who will look at the lovely scarves I’ve knit for them and think “Wow, Julie was cheap this year”). All the money I thought I was saving with homemade gifts? Yeah, not so much. Seriously, people are getting a handmade gift and a book for Christmas.
I do think I can scale back on overall Christmas spending this year, though, which is good because I have to. We got word today that no one will be getting merit increases at my job because we didn’t get the extra amount in tuition that we were supposed to get. I’ll still get my annual cost-of-living increase, but not the raise I was hoping for. And I’m not holding my breath that my union will get a new contract this year - the mayoral race is over, Mike Bloomberg doesn’t have to look like the friend of the teachers now, and what the hell, we’ve been working without contract for three years, what’s another one?
So here I am, trying to figure out how to give people a nice Christmas without breaking the bank. I think Denis Leary said it best when he said, Merry Fuckin’ Christmas.
Math skills, or lack thereof. November 18, 2005 ~ 2:25 pm
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats, Daily Grind , comments closed
Lake George, NY
I have never been good at math. I think that’s because I’m lazy, and math requires my brain to work in new ways. My neural pathways are slackers, they dislike having to stretch themselves and actually think. English, languages, history? All that comes with little to no effort. But math strains my brain, and my brain no likey.
Which is why it has taken me the better part of an hour to figure out if I can go to a cast party tomorrow night. That would involve going to the show and not getting home until 11:30 or so. Which would not be a problem but for one thing: I have already made plans to hang out with Rick tomorrow afternoon and will not have time to go to Brooklyn between the hanging out and the show. This is not actually a problem, either, but it means excess planning to get around the real problem: the Piss Crusader’s shot schedule.
The Piss Crusader is supposed to get his insulin every 12 hours. Sometimes we are 12 hours on the nose, sometimes we are not. When Jesse was diagnosed diabetic, New Vet said that I could work the shots around my schedule, and if they were a little less or more than 12 hours, it wouldn’t matter. However, if I have plans for a night and have to change to shot schedule, I have to plan accordingly. I can’t just give Jesse one shot at 8 AM, the next at 11:30 PM, and the one after that at 8 AM again. I have to adjust the time so his shots are a little more consistent. Knowing that tomorrow evening’s shot will occur at 11:30, I have to adjust tomorrow morning’s shot and tonight’s shot, as well as the Sunday shot schedule, but make sure that by Monday I can give him his shot at 7 AM so I can get to my doctor’s appointment at 8:15.
If your head is spinning, congratulations. You now feel like I do. Except part of my feeling like that is from the Benadryl I’m taking. You have no excuse.
Looking at it, the shot schedule can be tweaked enough to allow me to be with Rick tomorrow afternoon/evening, go straight to the show, and then the cast party. But I thought about it for quite a while before I reached that conclusion. I’m starting to realize that perhaps algebra wasn’t as big a waste of time as I thought it was in high school. My equation looks something like this:
Jesse’s shot time + time spent commuting * Julie’s level of brain function = big pain in the ass.
My 9th grade math teacher would be so proud of me.
It Creeps! November 17, 2005 ~ 10:17 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedSubtitle: “And The Peasants Rejoiced”
Today for Half-Nekkid Thursday, I give you something creepy. Something gross. Something horrifying. I give you…my left hand:
My hand does not normally look like that. In fact, it generally looks a lot more like my right hand. For comparison, I took this picture:
Stage left, my deformed hand. Stage right, my normal hand. Note that while my normal hand looks kinda crone-ish as I approach my 30s, my deformed hand looks a lot like the mascot for Hamburger Helper. Gnasty, right? Who wants a hand that looks like a water-filled latex glove? A more pertinent question: who wants to wake up with a hand that looks like that? I didn’t, but you can’t always get what you want.
Remember that mosquito I was bitching about on Monday? Well, the guess is that I am allergic to whatever Uber-Mosquito bit before me. I think that was Joe, since he had a big bug bite on his chin. Fortunately, Joe’s bite is disappearing, and after two days hopped up on Benadryl, my hand is doing better. I can see my first two knuckles again, my wrist has returned, I can make a fist again, and I have every hope that I will be back to normal by the weekend. Well, as normal as I get.
That noise you hear? The peasants are rejoicing that my hand is getting better. The peasants are going wild, I tell you. The peasants are also probably a Benadryl and boredom-induced illusion. I’ll miss them…they kept me occupied while I was home since I couldn’t type or knit. Two days without Blogdom and knitting? I was in hell, people. My hand was enclosed in an ice pack, I had no energy to read, and I watched a lot of TiVo as a result. I pretty much cleared out my TiVo backlog, which is fucking impressive. The peasants were impressed, at least. Then again, they’re peasants. And illusory peasants at that. What do they know? They were also entertained by the amount of time I spent poking at my liquefied hand. Oh, wait, that was just me.
Lessons learned by this: kill all the mosquitoes. Especially the Uber-Mosquitoes. And even endless scarves look like fun to knit when you’re unable to knit. Today, back to work and knitting.
And the peasants rejoiced.
What the hell? November 14, 2005 ~ 10:07 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity, Rants , comments closed
The Mine-ha-ha, Lake George, NY
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s November, is it not? The middle of November at that? So what in the hell was a mosquito doing in my house last night? How did it get there? Aren’t those little bastards all supposed to be dead by this time of year?
I woke up around 1:30 when I became conscious that I was scratching in my sleep. Scratching my wrist and arm, which I found out when I turned on the light, were both sporting impressive bug bites the size of my thumb. Because I’d been scratching for a while, no doubt. I threw off the blankets, shook them out in case there were spiders or other biting fiends hiding in them, and put some Cortaid on my bites. I shut the light and tried to focus on going back to sleep instead of how much my arms itched. And then I heard that high-pitched whine.
I turned the lights back on, looked back, and saw the mosquito on my pillow. I slapped at it, but the little shit took flight and I missed him. So I shut the light back off and lay back down with my entire body covered by a sheet. Mosquitos find you by the carbon dioxide you emit when you exhale; I wasn’t going to make it easier for that fucker to find me. After about five minutes with the sheet over my head, it was hot and hard to breathe. I decided this approach was getting me nowhere fast, so I threw the sheet off and decided to use myself as bait.
Two hours later, flyswatter and two cats in bed with me, the mosquito came back. I heard him in my ear and slapped at it. I turned the light back on, but didn’t find any little insect corpses. I still don’t know if I got the fucker, but at 4 AM I was just too tired to care anymore. I went back to sleep, and woke up this morning with at least six bites. And that’s why I’m drinking my second diet soda of the day. Julie doesn’t function on less than 5 hours of sleep.
Side note: Why is my boss always surprised when she asks “Do you want to go to this meeting?” and I say “No”? If you want me to go to the damned meeting, tell me, but don’t ask what I want to do or you will be unhappy with the answer.
Other side note: Why, oh why, have the football gods deserted my Steelers? Yes, we won last night, but now Charlie Batch’s hand is broken and we are left with Tommy Maddox, who did his best to blow a 20 point lead last night? Tommy Maddox should not be allowed to throw. He should have to hand off all the time. Better yet, they should make Antwaan Randle El our quarterback over Tommy. They showed clips of Randle El’s college career as a quarterback last night and he can actually throw, unlike Tommy. If I sucked at my job as badly as Tommy Maddox sucks at his, I would get fired. Do you hear that, Bill Cowher? Normal bosses FIRE INCOMPETENT PEOPLE, not put them into pressure situations. Freakin’ Maddox.
A moment November 11, 2005 ~ 11:04 am
Posted by Julie in : Deep Thoughts , comments closed
Pastoral. Lake George, NY.
It’s November 11, the great unmentioned holiday in New York City. I kid you not, this city takes Columbus Day off but Veteran’s Day goes by with barely a mention. This pisses me off to no end.
Where I grew up, we had the day off school for Veteran’s Day. Those of us in the band would go to various places around the county and play in a Veteran’s Day parade, and our band director would tell us each year about how at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the Armistice was signed, and how we were damned sure going to observe a moment of silence at that minute, no matter where in the parade we were. And at 11:11, we would always stop playing and marching and observe that moment of silence, in respect for those who had served and sometimes died for freedom.
Men like my father, my uncle, and my grandfather, all of whom served in World War II and came home afterwards. Men like my father’s college roommate, Dick Drury, who didn’t get to come home alive - he’s buried in Arlington. There are those who served honorably during peacetime, like my boyfriend and Vince. And there are those who didn’t get to serve in a “good war,” but have put their lives on the line like my cousin Matt, who served in Iraq, and like Lori’s brother Ryan, who is on his way over there right now.
At some point today, whether your town comes to a standstill for Veteran’s Day or barely acknowledges it, take some time to think about all of these people. People you know or may not know, who have served to keep us safe. No matter what you think of the current war (and we all know what I think), the men and women over there are putting their lives on the line daily. That takes a kind of courage most of us will never have.
And if you see a Veteran today, thank them.
